Yes, a lot of vinyl of modern music sounds terrible. A friend of mine LOVES his vinyl but he agrees that most of the new pressings are of very poor quality, worse than your typical CD. In fact, some of them are completely screwed up and unlistenable. The range of quality is huge so it's always a crap shoot. It is clear the market warrants zero money or effort to make them - it's weak marketing at best. It is much easier to find a good-sounding CD version of the music and go with that.
Older vinyl can sound great if you have an expensive and fancy record cleaner, and yet, it will still often be noisier than the cheapest amplifier you can find. If an amp made as much background noise as most vinyl, it would be considered broken and thrown in the garbage.
I have heard vinyl sound fantastic many times, and I've tried it 3 times myself, but in the end, it isn't worth the hassle, room and expense of cleaning, or having it wear each time I use it, or all the extraneous noise, wow and flutter of the record, or dealing with the delicateness of the cart, nor the cost of all the stuff it takes to make it work well, not to mention the space for it all. Maybe if I was older, was not a mechanical engineer, and already had tons of records, I'd be more into it, but at face value today, it simply doesn't add up for me.
Older vinyl can sound great if you have an expensive and fancy record cleaner, and yet, it will still often be noisier than the cheapest amplifier you can find. If an amp made as much background noise as most vinyl, it would be considered broken and thrown in the garbage.
I have heard vinyl sound fantastic many times, and I've tried it 3 times myself, but in the end, it isn't worth the hassle, room and expense of cleaning, or having it wear each time I use it, or all the extraneous noise, wow and flutter of the record, or dealing with the delicateness of the cart, nor the cost of all the stuff it takes to make it work well, not to mention the space for it all. Maybe if I was older, was not a mechanical engineer, and already had tons of records, I'd be more into it, but at face value today, it simply doesn't add up for me.